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Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by jefe_ on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:04PM (#15194275)
I have an uncle who owns a factory in Northeast Ohio. I saw him over the summer and this is easily the number one issue affecting his day to day operations. He showed me a few security camera videos of people coming to work high and literally going crazy, and then a video of someone who had arrived for a job interview, but just sat in the lobby dazed and unresponsive to commands to leave. The videos were shocking, people were like zombies. He can't find people to hire, and he can't keep the people he has, if they don't overdose at work, they overdose at home. I knew it was an issue, but didn't know it was the main issue facing American industry.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by michaelmrose on Thursday September 07, 2017 @03:17PM (#15194892)
So since there are lots of non druggies out there virtually the entire population in fact I'm guessing employment at said factory is so crappy that the only people willing to hire on are junkies.

This says more about the factory than the junkies. Figure out why nobody decent will work there.

Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by emodendroket on Thursday September 07, 2017 @03:35PM (#15195012)
I feel like the vast majority of supposed "labor shortages" have a lot to do with only wanting to pay bottom-of-the-barrel wages.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by rjbwork on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:09PM (#15194319)
Do you know how much he is offering to pay entry-level employees?
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by jefe_ on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:14PM (#15194380)
I do not unfortunately. I do think based on what he was describing he would have enough incentive to pay more if that were feasible and resulted in talent that prevented these issues.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by jdc on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:24PM (#15194481)
Has he considered offering relocation?
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by lotsofpulp on Thursday September 07, 2017 @03:45PM (#15195072)
Maybe by the time an employer offered enough compensation to create an incentive to move to northeast Ohio, the cost of the good might be so high that it would just be worth it to manufacture in China.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by TheAdamAndChe on Thursday September 07, 2017 @04:17PM (#15195311)
Then perhaps we should do something about that economic loophole. If our country's employers can't provide a good, rising quality of life to its workers, then something needs to change.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by pas on Monday September 11, 2017 @10:49AM (#15218913)
Aren't there a lot of ex-prisoners that can't find jobs because employers are stubborn?
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by drzaiusapelord on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:22PM (#15194448)
Yet somehow Jeff Sessions can't stop talking about "urban pot epidemic" and how pot, including medical pot, needs to be cracked down upon.

Meanwhile opioids and meth are completely out of control, but because they are largely white rural/suburban drug users, they have been getting a free pass for decades.

Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by vesrah on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:41PM (#15194625)
What are you talking about? He's been going after over-proscribing doctors. http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/jeff-sessions-targe...
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by drzaiusapelord on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:45PM (#15194647)
You can certainly do two things at the same time but his policy talk and actions are very much focused primarily on recreational pot usage and state's right to medicinal pot.

Sessions:

"Good people don't smoke marijuana."

"We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it's in fact a very real danger."

“I thought those guys [the Ku Klux Klan] were OK until I learned they smoked pot.”

“Colorado was one of the leading states that started the movement to suggest that marijuana is not dangerous. And we’re going to find it, in my opinion, ripple throughout the entire American citizenry; and we’re going to see more marijuana use, and it’s not going to be good. We’re going to see more other drug use, illegal drug use, also, which is damaging.”

Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by aaronbrethorst on Thursday September 07, 2017 @03:05PM (#15194806)
A comment from earlier this summer that I think explains a lot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14879335
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by emodendroket on Thursday September 07, 2017 @03:36PM (#15195020)
> Meanwhile opioids and meth are completely out of control, but because they are largely white rural/suburban drug users, they have been getting a free pass for decades.

Are you saying what we need is a draconian crackdown on more drug users? I understand the impulse, but I don't agree that that is the solution, personally.

Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by DKnoll on Thursday September 07, 2017 @04:03PM (#15195208)
If you think opioid addiction only affects white people outside urban areas I invite you to visit any large city in North America.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by jrs95 on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:29PM (#15194528)
They haven't been getting a pass, criminalization is just totally ineffective at dealing with the problem. As far as disproportionate enforcement goes, rural and suburban Americans haven't been murdering anyone at nearly the rate of inner city gangs, which is a big part of why there's more enforcement in urban areas.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by drzaiusapelord on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:32PM (#15194550)
Criminalization is not what I'm advocating. If Sessions and Trump are fighting the legalization of medicinal cannibis what exactly do you think are the chances of decrim or state funded medical treatment for opioid and meth addicts?

>rural and suburban Americans haven't been murdering anyone

Those drugs are brought into the US by very violent gangs and I certainly can grow pot peacefully in my home. Ignoring the trafficking of these drugs is morally inexcusable. How many of these addicts make their own opioids or meth? Meth linked crimes are a huge number and almost always violent. Opioid withdrawal brings in a great deal of crime too. Those rural towns that have fallen into opioid addiction are crime hellholes for this very reason.

Heavy opioid use is linked to crime, unlike some drugs:

>(2) heavy opioid users committed crimes significantly more frequently than did moderate opioid users, non-opioid polydrug users, cannabis users or alcohol users

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2790266

Also:

>Methamphetamine was the only drug use variable that was strongly correlated with homicide.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18936516

I'd much rather work with "urban pot" users than rural meth and opioid addicts, and so would you. Why the former is more under attack than the latter shows our systemic problems with race in this country. Remember sentiment like this is why pot is illegal, from Harry J. Anslinger, the founder of the war on drugs:

    “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”

    “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by pizza on Thursday September 07, 2017 @07:09PM (#15196625)
Criminalization only increases the attractiveness of the drug trade. The government's stance doesn't merely ignore the trafficking, it makes it ridiculously lucrative.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by pizza on Thursday September 07, 2017 @09:13PM (#15197204)
Which, of course, ends up hurting people more.
Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by dragonwriter on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:42PM (#15194628)
> As far as disproportionate enforcement goes, rural and suburban Americans haven't been murdering anyone at nearly the rate of inner city gang

Certainly, more ruled-as-murders per population unit happen in urban areas, but I'm aware of no statistics by urban/rural residence of killer (where a crime happens doesn't tell you where the criminal is from, and people who live in rural areas obviously can commit crimes in cities.)

And rural areas have higher death rates and it's at least plausible that the decreased population density makes it easier for evidence of homicide to be concealed and murders to be passed off as death by other causes, so the relative rates of ruled-as-murders may not accurately reflect the relative rate of actually-is-murder.

Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by 1123581321 on Thursday September 07, 2017 @03:21PM (#15194920)
Race is a proxy for urban/rural and income. Population density is correlated with increased crime rates. Certainly that's not to say urban living causes crime.

The idea that so many rural deaths could be covered-up murders is simply fanciful.

Re:Opioid Use Could Explain 20% of the Drop in American Men ... by 987412365 on Thursday September 07, 2017 @02:47PM (#15194672)
That's a real stretch